306 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



wards in a, definite and reflective manner, in conse- 

 quence of intellectual development. Among all 

 civilized peoples, whether extinct or still in existence, 

 speech is not only personified in the complex idea or 

 language, but it is deified. It is well known that this 

 is the case in all phases of Eastern Christianity, and 

 that the other Christian churches have since identified 

 the Grseco-E astern idea of the Logos with the Messianic 

 ideas engrafted upon it. If among the prehistoric 

 peoples which most resemble modern savages, speech 

 was personified by the necessity of the perceptive 

 faculty, a vague power was certainly ascribed to it, 

 and even a simple murmur or whisper was supposed 

 to have a direct and personal influence on things, men, 

 and animals. Magic, which is the primitive expression 

 of fetishtic power, embodied in a man, had its most 

 efficacious form in the utterance of words, cries, 

 whispers, or songs, referring to the malign or to the 

 healing and beneficent arts, and it was employed to 

 arouse or to calm storms, to destroy or improve the 

 harvest, or for like purposes. 



Beginning with the traditions of our race, even 

 prior to its dispersion, there are plain proofs that 

 words and songs were originally employed for exorcisms 

 and magic in various diseases, and for incantations 

 directed against men or things. Kar means to 

 bewitch, as in German we have eincm etwas anthun, 

 in low Latin facturarc, in Italian futtucchiere, and from 

 Kar we have carmen, a song or magic formula. The 



